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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   27720 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 13, 2024

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Link: https://www.natesilver.net/p/how-culture-trumps-economic-class

From the article:

In 2020, something unprecedented happened in recent American politics: Democrats won the wealthiest voters, or at least the wealthiest subgroup that the exit polls tracked that year (people making $100K or more). Among poorer voters, the story is more complicated. Biden did just a hair better with the white working-class than Clinton — not a lot better, but enough to get him over the finish line in the Upper Midwest — but considerably worse than her with Hispanics and slightly worse among Black voters.

NYT exit polls indicate the opposite. Also, a 2022 House Exit Poll for another example of the GOP winning high earners.

I'm far too lazy to run around aggregating a bunch of exit polls, but it doesn't really matter that much because whatever the exact tilt they're all pointing the same way. Namely, that the spread on voting by income level may be electorally significant (not hard when margins are so low), but it is not demographically substantial (i.e. if you were to get a random sample of any of the strata, roughly half would be voting for each major party). Thus, my initial point remains the same:

either major party trying to position themselves as the party of the poor/working class is typical American posturing where everyone wants to be rich but no one wants to be Rich.

Saying one party is the party of the working class because slightly more than half of voters go for the other party while slightly less than half go for the same seems like it's drawing too strong a conclusion from too little evidence. Whichever poll you reference, characterizing the conflict as one of pure class comes across as slightly farcial. It is, however, consistent with my theory that the liberal-conservative conflict is sectoral (in particular, merchants and gentry versus professionals) and normative.

less charitably: the "realignment" is conservative wishcasting that more reflects how suburban conservatives would like to see themselves. It's part of the broader populist-conservative 'just a little guy' routine where Trumpists pretend that they have no power or influence. Admitting that they're actually well-off and influential would puncture the fantasy that they're rebels against the empire instead of engaged in a peer conflict.

Saying one party is the party of the working class because slightly more than half of voters go for the other party while slightly less than half go for the same seems like it's drawing too strong a conclusion from too little evidence. Whichever poll you reference, characterizing the conflict as one of pure class comes across as slightly farcial. It is, however, consistent with my theory that the liberal-conservative conflict is sectoral (in particular, merchants and gentry versus professionals) and normative.

There's some parts of this that I might try to nitpick or reframe, but, broadly, I think this is well argued and an astute analysis.

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